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Yesterday, Democrats for Public Education (DFPE) released the results of a poll that supposedly shows a high degree of public support for their agenda:

All of the progressive reforms elicit solid majority endorsement (ranging from 60% to 80% buy-in), while none of the conservative reforms come remotely close to a majority (ranging from 40% to 10% buy-in). Note the steep drop-off from the last progressive reform (increase teacher pay) to the top conservative reform (test scores for teacher evaluations). [Emphasis in the original.]

What an amazing coincidence! The public favors exactly what DFPE proposes!

But let’s look at how they phrased the “proposed reforms”:

Notice how all the so-called “progressive reforms” sound positive (“engaging curriculum” “overcome challenges”) and sometimes even explicitly connect the reform to some positive outcome (“help disadvantaged students”). Are teachers’ “due process rights” (read: tenure) really about their ability to “advocate for the things that students need” or more about protecting incompetent teachers from being fired?

Today, Education Next released its latest survey results on education policy. As with the Friedman Foundation’s survey earlier this year and previous Education Next surveys, scholarship tax credits (STCs) remain the most popular form of private educational choice. STCs garnered support from 60% of respondents compared to 50% support for universal school vouchers and only 37% support for low-income vouchers.

The Friedman Foundation’s survey found the strongest support for educational choice among younger Americans. While Americans aged 55 and up favored STCs by a 53%-33% margin, Americans aged 18-34 supported STCs by a whopping 74%-14% margin. While it’s possible that younger Americans are more likely to support educational choice because they’re more likely to have school-aged children, it could also be evidence of growing support for educational choice generally. The series of Education Next surveys provides strong support for the latter interpretation, as shown in the chart below. (Note: the 2013 Education Next survey did not ask about STCs.)

While support for STCs was only 46% in 2009, it has grown to 60% this year. Over the same time, opposition has fallen from 27% to 24%, with a low of 16% in 2012. If support among millennials merely remains constant, overall support for educational choice will continue to grow in the coming years, making the adoption and expansion of such programs increasingly likely.

[See here for Neal McCluskey’s dissection of the Education Next survey questions concerning Common Core.]

The annual Education Next survey is out, and its headliner is the Common Core. Unfortunately, it features basically the same incomplete, answer-skewing question it employed last year, and reports the same dubious finding of majority support. But even with that, the direction in which opinion has moved speaks volumes about the serious trouble the Core is in.

Just like last year, the question gives a misleading description of either the Core or national standards generically—pollsters asked a version that did not mention the Core by name—and got high rates of support. Here’s the question, with the parts that were omitted, for half the respondents, in brackets:

As you may know, in the last few years states have been deciding whether or not to use [the Common Core, which are] standards for reading and math that are the same across the states. In the states that have these standards, they will be used to hold public schools accountable for their performance. Do you support or oppose the use of these [the Common Core] standards in your state?

Like last year, the question completely ignores major federal coercion behind states’ adopting the Core, as well as the fact that the Core itself is only part of what’s necessary to “hold public schools accountable.” Tests, and consequences for performance on them, are needed for accountability, and those are driven by federally demanded testing and sanctions. Oh, and Washington selected and paid for specific Core-aligned tests. Meanwhile, generic common standards would in no way have to be used to hold schools accountable; they could just be toothless measuring devices. And how many people would come out against something as seemingly positive as holding schools “accountable”? The devil is in how, exactly, that would be done.

Last week I reviewed the latest survey on education policy from the Friedman Foundation but I missed something that should warm the cockles of the hearts of everyone who supports greater choice in education: each generation is progressively more favorable and less opposed to educational choice.

Scholarship tax credits (STCs) remain the most popular form of educational choice. Even among the 55+ cohort, there is a 20 point spread in favor of choice, 53 percent to 33 percent. Support increases in each cohort by 8 to 13 points. Meanwhile, opposition falls precipitously from 33 percent to only 14 percent. The 35-54 cohort has a 39 point spread in favor of educational choice and the 18-34 cohort has a whopping 60 point spread, 74 percent to 14 percent.

Vouchers are the second most popular of the three reforms. While the oldest cohort is slightly more pro-voucher than pro-STC, opposition is 7 points higher at 33 percent, for a spread of 16 points. The margin widens considerably to 32 points for the middle cohort (65 percent support to 33 percent opposition) and 44 points for the youngest cohort (69 percent support to 25 percent opposition), which is 16 points narrower than the spread for STCs.

According to the latest National Center for Education Statistics data, the average total per pupil expenditure in U.S. public schools was $12,136 in the 2009-10 school year. However, 63 percent of respondents thought that government schools spend less than $12,000 per pupil, including 49 percent who estimated that they spend less than $8,000 per pupil. Those findings are consistent with the 2013 Education Next survey, in which the average guess was $6,680 per pupil, barely more than half of what is actually spent.

Like the Education Next survey, the Friedman survey asked respondents whether they thought public school spending was too high, about right, or too low, after first randomly assigning the respondents into two groups: one that first heard a prompt explaining that the average U.S. public school spends $10,658 per pupil (this is average operating expenditure per pupil), while the other group was not given any prompt. Whereas 56 percent of the uninformed group thought spending was too low, only 47 percent of the informed group agreed. (It’s likely that the shift would have been even more pronounced had the Friedman Foundation cited the higher total per pupil expenditures in the prompt rather than the partial figure. Indeed, a previous Friedman survey found that the public prefers to know the total figure.) Those findings are consistent with the 2013 Education Next survey, which found that 63 percent of uninformed respondents wanted to increase public school spending but only 43 percent of informed respondents agreed.

At an American Enterprise Institute event discussing the findings, AEI’s Ramesh Ponnuru observed that politicians could loudly promise to spend $9,000 per pupil and most voters would think that they were calling for an increase in school funding rather than a significant cut.

A Pew Internet and American Life poll out this week finds: “By a 53%-41% margin, Americans say they do not believe that the spread of affordable broadband should be a major government priority.” Non-Internet users are less likely than Internet users to say the government should prioritize spreading access to high-speed connections.

The federal government spent $7.2 billion in “stimulus” money on the premise that the federal government is supposed to do this kind of thing. And the Federal Communications Commission’s “National Broadband Plan” is premised on the idea that there is supposed to be a national broadband plan. It isn’t, and there’s not.

Much as I love using the Internet for work, entertainment, and social connection, I recognize that people can live perfectly happy lives without it. The invention and growth of the Internet should always be seen as having opened new avenues for people, not as having created a national communications medium in which participation is required to live a full life. Social engineers, stand down: people will use the Internet if they want it, and they won’t if they don’t.

Compared to the average government worker, most Americans think they work harder, have less job security and make less money.

In fact, 59% of Americans say the average government worker earns more annually than the average taxpayer, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 15% don’t believe that to be true, while another 26% are not sure.

Among those who have close friends or relatives who work for the government, the belief is even stronger: 61% say the average government worker earns more than the average taxpayer.

Feeding that belief is the finding that 51% of all adults think government workers are paid too much. Only 10% say they are paid too little, while 27% say their pay is about right.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data indeed shows that government workers work fewer hours in a year and have much higher job security than private sector workers. And I’ve argued that they are generally overpaid, and by increasing amounts.